Newfoundland on the northern flank, Trinidad on the southern,
and Bermuda in the center were the first of the new Atlantic bases to be
garrisoned. The first contingent arrived in Newfoundland in January 1941, ahead
of the construction forces, and in April the first garrison troops arrived in
Trinidad and Bermuda, only a few weeks after the advance party of construction
people.

The timing was not exactly what the War Department had at
first envisaged. In spite of the pessimism over the chances of Britain's winning
the war which in September 1940 still colored the War Department's estimate of
the situation, General Marshall laid down the dictum that garrisons would riot
be sent to the Atlantic bases until construction was well advanced. Some
definite threat to the base sites might require the dispatch of a garrison
prematurely, but this was a possibility that could apparently be waited for.1

It was at the suggestion of General Embick, senior U.S. Army
member of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense, United States and Canada, that a
garrison was sent to Newfoundland before the bases there were scarcely under
construction. The board, recognizing Newfoundland as an especially vital area,
had assumed that the United States would send forces for its defense "at the
earliest practicable date."
2 When the subject came up for discussion during a
conference in the Chief of Staff's office on 12 September, General Embick urged
that they be sent without waiting for the bases to be completed, and on the next
day G-3 was directed to consider the matter.3

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The principal consideration, apart from factors of strategy
and available forces and of immediate deployment as opposed to training for the
future, was the question of housing. When reinforcements had been sent to
Anchorage, Alaska, in June 1940, it had been necessary to house them in tents
for a month or so until barracks were available. But Anchorage in midsummer was
very different from Newfoundland in winter, and it would be many months before
suitable accommodations could be erected in Newfoundland. The enactment of the
Selective Service law was bringing this question of Army housing into the glare
of public interest, which would have flamed quickly into public criticism, loud
and widespread, had American soldiers been sent to Newfoundland with nothing but
tents as shelter against the rigors of winter. An alternative to housing the
troops in tents lay apparently unnoticed among the pages of the Greenslade Board
Report: that a vessel be chartered and used as a floating barracks at St. John's
until accommodations were provided on shore. Col. Douglas C. Cordiner, chief of
the Water Transport Branch in the Transportation Division of the Quartermaster
Corps, seems to have had the same thought quite independently.4 This solution
was finally adopted. The large but antiquated ocean liner America, taken
over from Germany during the first World War, was refitted and renamed the
Edmund B. Alexander. After a longer delay than had been expected, she
finally left New York on 20 January 1941 and made her way slowly northeastward
with the first contingent of the Newfoundland garrison: 58 officers and gig
enlisted men principally of the 3d Infantry, 62d Coast Artillery (AA), and 57th
Coast Artillery under the command of Col. Maurice D. Welty. Their task was to
defend, in co-operation with the Canadian and Newfoundland troops, the city and
harbor of St. John's.5

No further steps toward manning the Atlantic defenses were
taken until April 1941, when the first units went to Bermuda and Trinidad and
reinforcements were dispatched to Newfoundland. The impetus then came from the
President.

During the intervening months the focus of American military plan-

[385]

THE ARMY TRANSPORT, EDMUND B. ALEXANDER, leaves New York for Newfoundland.

ning had shifted. The probability now was that England and
the British Fleet could withstand the German war machine, that if the United
States were forced into the war (and there was a tendency to substitute "when"
for "if") it could be as an ally of an undefeated Britain. With this the
probability, the ABC-1 agreement had been concerted to the end that American
power might be brought to bear against the Axis in Europe. The Atlantic islands,
already considered essential as outlying bastions of defense in the event of a
British collapse, could serve equally well the interests of attack, as bases for
the projection of American power eastward or for the protection of this eastward
advance. But the architects of Army strategy were not yet ready to blueprint the
course of the eventual offensive by garrisoning the islands as advance bases;
and the more convinced they were that Britain and the British Fleet would hold
out, the less urgent it seemed to man the bases as outlying bastions of
hemisphere defense. As late as 31 March they had no expectation of sending
reinforcements to Newfoundland or any forces to any of the other

[386]

bases before the first of July.6 Furthermore, however one
viewed the Atlantic bases, the Army's strength in trained men and in ammunition
was still limited. To disperse the available forces at this time would, it was
feared, disrupt the training of the larger army that would some day be needed.

While the Anglo-American staff conferences were going on in
Washington, the Battle of the Atlantic had taken an extremely critical turn.
In Admiral Stark's opinion it had become, in fact, "hopeless except as
we take strong measures to save it."
7 Four of the most powerful surface vessels of the German Navy-the
pocket battleship Scheer, the heavy battle cruisers Scharnhorst and
Gneisenau, and the 8-inch cruiser Admiral Hipper---wereon
the loose, prowling the Atlantic sea lanes and adding serious destruction to
the mounting toll of the U-boat packs.8 Submarine attacks could be countered by light escort vessels; but
the German surface raiders, whether in refuge or at sea, presented a different
threat, one that only capital ships or strong cruiser and carrier forces could
meet. Admiral Stark had not at all exaggerated the seriousness of the situation.
By March it seemed to him only a matter of at most two months before the United
States would be at war, "possibly undeclared," with Germany and Italy;
although the Army at this time was counting on at least five months' grace.
Admiral Stark discussed his analysis with the President on 2 April and again
the next day, thrashed out the steps to be taken, and was told to adopt the
strong measures he thought were required: to draw up plans for escort of convoy
west of longitude 30° west and issue orders
for the transfer into the Atlantic of a heavy striking force, including three
battleships, from the Pacific.9 The destructive forays of the Scharnhorstand Gneisenau
had given President Roosevelt an understandable concern for the safety of
the American bases, particularly those which were most exposed or of most value
to the Navy-Bermuda, Trinidad,

[387]

and Newfoundland. On 7 April he directed the Secretary of War
to have Newfoundland reinforced and to send garrisons to Bermuda and Trinidad
immediately.10

In quick succession, two other steps followed. On 9 April
Secretary of State Hull and the Danish Minister in Washington signed an
agreement under which the United States undertook the defense of Greenland and
was granted the right to establish any facilities considered necessary for that
purpose or for the defense of the North American continent. Then, on 14 April,
Mr. Harry L. Hopkins and Under Secretary of State Welles met with the Icelandic
consul general in Washington and reopened the question of defending Iceland, a
question which both the State and War Departments had hitherto regarded with a
noncommittal attitude.11 In the meantime, Mr. Hopkins had been casting about for
some way of using the Atlantic bases for delivering lend-lease materials to the
British. He had discussed with his chief legal assistant, Mr. Oscar Sydney Cox,
the possibility of convoys, of transshipping goods within the western
hemisphere, even of transporting goods in public vessels. Although their
discussions reached no firm conclusion, they were closely tied in with the
developments of April, if only by reason of their contemporaneousness.

The War Department had immediately set about making the
preliminary arrangements for sending the garrisons. Heavy coast artillery,
bombers, and sufficient infantry to repel landing parties appeared to be the
answer to the particular threat seen by the President. His special concern for
the safety of Bermuda gave that base the highest priority and evoked an
admonition to the War Department to "get planes there as soon as any place can
be prepared."
12There were as yet no facilities, however, for land plane
operations and no housing at the base site. Fortunately, one of Bermuda's large,
modern resort hotels, the Castle Harbour, was available for lease. Conveniently
situated about two miles across the harbor from the site of the Army base, it
could accommodate approximately 1,000 men. But for the time being, air defense
would have to be limited to the three patrol bombers stationed at Great Sound,
which the Navy agreed to make available for purposes of local de-

[388]

fense, assisted, whenever their ship was in port, by the dive
bombers of the Atlantic Fleet carrier that was to be based there.13 The situation
was somewhat better in Trinidad. There too the Army base would not be ready for
occupancy for several weeks at the earliest, but a camp site suitable for troops
was available in Queens Park, on the outskirts of Port of Spain; and a limited
number of bombers could be accommodated at Piarco Field, the commercial airport.
In Newfoundland, thanks to the airport at Gander and the fact that an American
garrison was already at St. John's, less improvisation would be necessary.
Operating facilities for a bomber squadron together with quarters for the men
were to be ready at Gander by 19 April, and additional ground troops to the
number of about one thousand could be housed on board the Edmund B.
Alexander. Reinforcements thus presented no great problem. Transports were
to be available during the month on the dates set for each move.14
The consent of the British Government to the stationing of troops outside the
leased areas was given without delay. By 8 April only one detail remained to be
worked out, the choice of officers to command the Bermuda and Trinidad forces,
and this was taken care of the next day.15

The recommendations of the War Plans Division as to the
strength and composition of the respective forces were not accepted in their
entirety. The infantry units for Bermuda and Trinidad were scaled down to one
company each, and no B-17's were available for Newfoundland. Furthermore, owing
to the President's desire to speed the defenses of Bermuda, the sailing dates of
the Newfoundland and Bermuda contingents were interchanged.16

The Bermuda force of some 860 men, comprising Company G, 11th Infantry, Battery F, 52d Coast Artillery, and Battery B, 57th Coast
Artillery, and commanded by Col. Alden G. Strong, landed in Bermuda on Sunday,
20 April. It had been preceded, a week before, by Brig. Gen. Francis B. Wilby,
chief of staff of the First Army, and Lt. Col. Harold F. Loomis of the War Plans
Division, who had been surveying the general situation and choosing sites for
the coast defense guns and who now were among those on hand to

[389]

welcome Colonel Strong and his men. Within a few hours after
he arrived, Colonel Strong had drawn up in collaboration with Capt. Jules James,
USN, commandant of the naval base, a joint plan for the defense of the islands,
for which he disposed his troops as follows: one 2-gun battery of the 8-inch
coast defense guns was to be placed at Fort Victoria, on St. George's Island,
and another on Somerset Island, not far from the U.S. naval base; a like-sized
battery of 155-mm. guns was to be placed on Cooper's Island, near the Army
base, and another on Hamilton Island, in the vicinity of Riddle's Bay; and the
infantry company, quartered in the Castle Harbour Hotel, was to be the mobile
reserve.17

The air unit of the Trinidad garrison was the next to reach
its destination. On 24 April some 432 men of the 1st Bomber Squadron arrived
from Panama on board the USAT Chateau Thierry. They set up a tent camp at
Piarco Field, where the planes arrived on 28 April, about the time the ground
units were leaving New York. The arrival of the latter at Port of Spain on 5 May
brought the total garrison to about 1,487 men, under the command of General
Talbot. The principal ground elements were one battalion, 252d Coast Artillery,
155-mm., and a rifle company of the 11th Infantry. A site was chosen for the
artillery on Chacachacare Island, at the northern entrance to the Gulf of Paria,
but for the time being most of the men were housed in a tent camp on recently
reclaimed land near the Port of Spain docks.18

Meanwhile, on 1 May the Newfoundland force consisting of some
646 officers and enlisted men had arrived at St. John's. Six B-18's of the 21st
Reconnaissance Squadron were flown from Miami to Gander, and the remainder of
the force sailed from New York on board the USAT Leonard Wood, Apart from
the air unit, the principal component was the coastal defense battery, a unit of
the 52d Coast Artillery, whose 8-inch railway guns were to be the backbone of
the harbor defenses.19

Much valuable planning experience that would have been useful
when the Iceland occupation was undertaken later in the year could have been
gained had the Newfoundland, Bermuda, and Trinidad movements been

[390]

carried out as task forces. As it was, the preparations
resembled those made for a routine change of station. Instead of an operations
plan, the commanding officers were given a Defense Project, drawn up by the War
Plans Division, in which the mission of the Army forces, the available strength,
and other pertinent military and geographical data were set forth.

The primary mission-to defend the United States military and
naval installations-was clear. The corollary-to deny hostile forces an approach
to the eastern seaboard or the Caribbean-was almost equally clear, whether
expressly stated, as in the case of Bermuda and Trinidad, or implicit, as in the
case of Newfoundland.20
The perplexing element was the question of the steps to be taken at the
appearance of German warships or planes. Secretary Stimson, on 24 April,
proposed to instruct the base commanders that any such forces approaching within
twenty-five miles of a British possession in which an American base was located
must be warned, and that, if the warning went unheeded, the vessel or plane
should be "immediately attacked with all available means."
21Although
the President put his "O.K." on the proposed instructions, he directed
Secretary Stimson to show them to the Navy. As a result the formal directive
drafted for The Adjutant General by the War Plans Division on r May was withheld
by the Chief of Staff for discussion with Admiral Stark and Under Secretary of
State Welles. After an attempt to put through a revised draft which omitted
reference to the 25-mile zone, the tear Plans Division learned that the
President wanted all mention of American forces opening fire eliminated
also. Secretary of State Hull thought the President's views would be best
followed by having the base commanders report by radio and ask for instructions
when "hostile" forces appeared; but from a military point of view such a
procedure would have been unrealistic.22Finally, Lt. Col. Robert W. Crawford,
head of the War Plans Division Projects Group, and Mr. Green Haywood
Hackworth, of the State Department's legal staff, agreed on a draft which they
thought would meet the views of the President and Secretary Hull, but which
Secretary Stimson apparently found too ambiguous. He changed it to read as
follows:

In case any force of belligerent powers other than those
powers which have sovereignty over Western Hemisphere territory attacks or
threatens to attack any British

[391]

possession on which any United States air or naval base is
located, the commanding officer of the Army Base Force shall resist such attack,
using all means at his disposal.23

And in this form, the instructions went out from the War
Department on 10 May.24

The question of what constituted a threatened attack remained
vague until midsummer. Then, during the planning for the Iceland movements, the
President revived the idea of an interdicted zone, of fifty miles, within which
the presence of Axis forces would be considered as evidence of hostile
intentions and justification for attack. This was a "shoot on sight" policy in
all but name, and on 11 September the President announced it as such. By the end
of October 1941 American forces were committed to the task of destroying all
German and Italian vessels or planes encountered anywhere in the western
Atlantic.25

Added responsibility had fallen on the Newfoundland garrison
in early June when the Air Corps Ferrying Command was created and a military air
transport service was begun across the North Atlantic. General Embick, who in
the past had not been entirely in sympathy with the Air Corps' expanding
conception of its role, and who as the Army representative on the Permanent
Joint Board on Defense, United States and Canada, had participated in drafting
the mission of the Newfoundland force, was of the opinion that the security of
the ferry route and the protection of transport operations were purely
incidental. Both General Drum and General Arnold insisted that this mission was
of equal importance to that of defending the base installations.26The matter was
discussed by General Arnold and members of the Air Staff and of the War Plans
Division on 21 August; and the conclusion was reached that no change in the
mission need be made for the time being. It was, it seemed, sufficiently
comprehensive to cover the situation.

At the beginning of 1940, before the Atlantic bases were
acquired and before the Alaska defenses were built up, the Army's overseas
garrisons were organized into the four departments: the Panama Canal Department
and

[392]

the Puerto Rican Department in the Caribbean, the Hawaiian
Department in the Pacific, and the Philippine Department in the Far East. They
were primarily designed to provide local defense. The wider operations that
would be necessary in time of war were to be conducted by theater commanders
under the direct control of GHQ, and into this chain of organization and command
the various base forces would be linked. No provision, however, had yet been
made for the twilight time between war and peace which the United States was
about to enter. When the first reinforcements went to Alaska in mid-1940, they
were kept under the tactical commander most interested in that area, General
DeWitt, the commanding general of the Fourth Army and Ninth Corps Area.27Alaska served as a precedent for Newfoundland and Bermuda.

Both Newfoundland and Bermuda were intimately tied in with
the defense of the northeastern seaboard, the responsibility for which rested
with the Commanding General, First Army. Both garrisons, except troops engaged
in construction work under the immediate supervision of the Chief of Engineers,
were therefore attached to the First Army. Each was responsible for its own
supply, which was to be provided by the Second Corps area to the same extent as
for units of the field forces within the corps area.28

After some discussion by one of General Marshall's deputies
with the heads of the several staff divisions, it had been decided that the only
designation that would not be a source of confusion with the Navy was the rather
unwieldy one, U.S. Troops in Newfoundland (or Bermuda, as the case might be).29But the official orders, a week later, designated the Newfoundland force as the
Newfoundland Base Command, U.S. Army, and the same terminology was used later
for the Bermuda and Trinidad garrisons.

In the Caribbean, the need of an integrated regional command
as well as unity of command was obvious if the new bases were to play a part in
the defense of that area. A "defense command," with the organizational features
of a theater of operations, was the answer to the regional side of the problem,
and on 10 February 1941 the Caribbean Defense Command officially came into
being. It became the foster parent of the Trinidad garrison on 18 April when the
latter, now formally designated the Trinidad Base Command, was assigned to the
Caribbean Defense Command. All the

[393]

Antilles south of Martinique, the Dutch islands off the
Venezuelan coast, together with Venezuela itself and British Guiana, Surinam,
and French Guiana were grouped together into a Trinidad Sector of the Caribbean
Defense, Command under General Talbot, who thus occupied a dual position.30
The other side of the problem-unity of command- was a perennial troublemaker,
one which involved the arrangements not only for the entire region but within
the respective base commands as well. The authority of the commanding officers
of the various bases over the air units assigned to them was, in the Caribbean,
limited by the regional air command, and the bounds of authority were not always
distinct. It was therefore a source of misunderstanding and frustration for the
local commanding officers.31

In Newfoundland, on the other hand, where a unit of the First
Air Force was placed under the direct command of an infantry colonel and, on a
higher level, of the Commanding General, First Army, the command arrangements in
their entirety were not to the liking of the Air Corps. General Spaatz, chief of
Air Corps Plans Division, argued that these arrangements would make it difficult
to co-ordinate activities with those of the Royal Canadian Air Force, that they
would hamper the control of transient plane movements, and complicate joint
operations with the air units that might be sent to Greenland.32They were an
obvious setback to the Air Corps' drive for centralized control of its striking
forces. According to General Spaatz, the solution would be to place all air
units in Newfoundland under the Commanding General, First Air Force, and to
leave only routine supply and administration to the Commanding General, First
Army. Neither the War Plans Division nor G-3 concurred. Although they were
agreeable to making the Air Corps responsible for technical supply and the
supervision of training activities, both the War Plans Division and G-3 opposed
any further change in the command arrangements. General Arnold's views were an
exact reiteration of the position taken by General Spaatz. A new element, the
question of air reinforcements, was injected into the problem when the War Plans
Division suggested that in the event of an attack or the threat of one the base
commander be authorized to call directly on the Commanding General, First Air
Force, for air reinforcements. But this likewise failed to meet the approval of
General Arnold, who in a memorandum to the Chief of Staff on 23 May proposed
that in case of an attack all units, ground as

[394]

well as air, become a task force commanded by the senior
officer present and operating under the theater commander.33Part of the problem
was thus shunted over to the procedural level where more likelihood of reaching
a compromise was to be expected.

When General Arnold advocated unity of command over combat
operations, he was resting on a principle on which General Marshall himself
placed the utmost reliance, but which had conventionally involved only Army
or Navy command. Nevertheless, in view of the Chief of Staff's partiality toward
a functional allocation, the Air Corps believed it could be fairly certain of
obtaining command where operations were principally air.

During these last days of May 1941 there were signs that the
North Atlantic area might soon take on greater significance. Plans for sending a
garrison to Greenland were completed. There was the possibility of a move into
the Azores. Then, at a conference on 4 June, General Marshall informed his staff
that the President had resolved to send American forces to Iceland.

The Newfoundland problem was taken up during the same
conference, and the decision was reached to organize the Newfoundland Base
Command as a task force under the direct control of GHQ as soon as GHQ took on
its normal command functions. A general officer of the Air Corps, it was
decided, would be given command of the force.34
The steps to put the decision into effect were taken in July. On the first of
the month, Brig. Gen. Henry W. Harms, who had been commandant of the Air Corps
training center at Moffett Field, Calif., was designated Commanding General,
Newfoundland Base Command. Two days later GHQ was given command of Army task
forces and the control of military operations. On 8 July, the Newfoundland Base
Command was designated a task force, to operate directly under GHQ, and The
Adjutant General was directed to notify GHQ to assume command, relieving the
Commanding General, First Army, as of 10 July. Similar instructions were also
issued placing the Bermuda Base Command under GHQ.35

Neither the Air Corps nor GHQ was completely satisfied with
the arrangement, and a number of changes were proposed. General McNair,

[395]

chief of staff of GHQ recommended a North Atlantic Defense
Command consisting of Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, and Iceland and with
logistics as well as operations under the control of GHQ The Air Corps promoted
a Northeastern Air Theater, with the Newfoundland air units placed directly
under the Commanding General, Air Force Combat Command. As for Bermuda, the
Supply Division of the General Staff (G-4) recommended that it be included in
the Caribbean Defense Command. The War Plans Division favored leaving things as
they were.36

No agreement was reached on any one of the proposed changes.
Falling back instead on the War Plans Division suggestion of the previous May,
General Marshall authorized the Newfoundland Base commander to bypass the normal
channel, which ran through GHQ and to call directly on the First Air Force when,
in an emergency, air reinforcements were urgently needed.37 Otherwise
the command situation remained as it was when GHQ had first called attention to
it. The War Plans Division, the Second Corps Area, Middletown Depot, the Chief
of Engineers, and the Chief of Army Air Forces were all linked in some fashion
to the chain of command and supply; and the United States-Canadian Permanent
Joint Board on Defense had a measure of responsibility for the defense plan.
What was left for GHQ General McNair pointed out, was merely "such inspection
and coordination as is practicable under the circumstances."
38

A fouled chain of command was not, however, the major
difficulty. Regardless of the palliatives that had been recommended, the fact
remained that GHQ had been given a job to do without all the means it
considered, necessary for accomplishing the task. The remedy was either to
"streamline" the War Department and establish a "command post" within the
General Staff or to enlarge the authority of GHQ but a difference of opinion
involving the very nature of GHQ's mission brought on further complications.
That GHQ had been called into being presupposed the existence of an

[396]

emergency and more than suggested the imminence of combat
operations. Proceeding on this basis, and recognizing the significance of the
North Atlantic area, GHQ was attempting to have theaters of operations
established well in advance of actual hostilities. Its efforts were thwarted, it
believed, by procrastination and myopia in the General Staff.
39An investigation
of the basic problem was begun in the War Department, and in order to provide "a
better understanding of the prospective development of command" the Caribbean
Defense Command was placed under GHQ control, effective 1 December 1941.40What
actually developed thereafter was a drastic reorganization of the War
Department.

In the meantime, during the summer and fall of 1941,
garrisons were being sent out to British Guiana, Antigua, St. Lucia, and
Jamaica, for construction had progressed to the point where some protection
seemed to be required either against external attack or, as in the case of
Jamaica, against strike and riot damage.

Many of the "housekeeping" chores and administrative problems
that arose in the Atlantic bases had also plagued the commanders of all the new
and rapidly mushrooming Army camps in the continental United States.
Overcrowded, inadequate housing, dust and mud, isolated surroundings, and
shortages of equipment slowed down activities, depressed the spirits of the men,
and frayed the tempers of commanding officers in Massachusetts or New Jersey as
well as in Trinidad or Bermuda, and in Georgia as in Newfoundland. But
circumstances of geography and politics magnified the more familiar problems and
gave rise to new ones that had no recent precedent in Army experience.

Throughout 1941 housing was an object of careful study in the
War Department and a source of frequent communications with the base commanders, none of whom wished to keep his men in tents for any
length of time. The War Department, which was keeping its eye on accommodations
for the authorized garrisons, seems to have been particularly concerned over the
reduction the President made in the permanent housing planned for

INSTALLATIONS IN NEWFOUNDLAND. Barracks at Fort Pepperrell
(top). U.S. Army supply dock, St. John's harbor (bottom).

[399]

Bermuda. Tents were entirely unsuitable, reported Colonel
Strong, the commanding officer, for severe hurricanes could be expected about
once a year and there would be long periods of wet, windy weather which, if the
men were in tents, would raise the rate of illness.41 Consequently, in July the
district engineer was authorized to divert a part of the construction effort to
erecting temporary barracks. In Trinidad, the construction of temporary barracks
at Fort Read began a few weeks after the arrival of the troops. At the same
time, General Talbot on his own initiative negotiated an arrangement with the,
British governor which gave the base command a temporary cantonment area on the
outskirts of Port of Spain. Early in June the garrison at St. John's,
Newfoundland, was evicted from its quarters on board the Edmund B. Alexander
and went into a tent camp outside the city. No temporary housing was
authorized for the Newfoundland garrison, but its permanent quarters at Fort
Pepperrell were expected to be ready before winter set in. In spite of
reinforcements during the second half of the year, the housing situation was
under fair control by December. Perhaps 150 men were still in tents at the
temporary coast defense sites in Bermuda, while in Newfoundland about half the
St. John's garrison had moved into permanent quarters. About 500 men were in
temporary barracks that had apparently been taken over from the construction
people. Housing for the remainder was promised during December. About half the
Trinidad garrison were in barracks by 1 November, and each week saw sizable
numbers transferred out of the tent camp. At the secondary bases temporary
housing was available for two or three times the number of troops that were
there.
42.

Uncertain port conditions in Newfoundland, inadequate rail
communications with Gander airport, the lack of shipping for local
transportation between Panama and Trinidad and between Trinidad and the outlying
bases, and restrictions on the purchase of local commodities served to
complicate the supply problem. The rehabilitation of the Newfoundland Railway,
first taken under study by the Permanent Joint Board on Defense as early as
January 1941, was of interest to several agencies, and some duplication of
effort occurred when both the Newfoundland Base Command and the Reconstruction
Finance Corporation made a survey of the physical needs

[400]

of the railroad. New rolling stock, financed by the United
States, began to ease the situation late in 1941. Harbor improvements at St.
John's and Argentia were a much-needed and welcome supplement.43In Trinidad,
General Talbot was concerned from the start about the storage space provided for
perishable supplies. It would have to be increased, he reported, unless a better
shipping schedule could be worked out. In any event, the existing space would be
inadequate, he continued, for any reinforcements that might be added to his
command.44As temporary remedies, the Office of The Quartermaster General
considered obtaining a refrigerated ship to be used for storage and allocating
funds for the purchase of local products, but apparently the cold storage plant
under construction by the Engineers was completed before these measures were
taken. All the same, the refrigeration problem was still unsolved, according to
Talbot, at the end of August.45 In reporting the supply situation to The
Quartermaster General in May, General Talbot pointed out with some
understatement that the local gasoline supply was "adequate" and shipments from
the United States should be immediately discontinued. It would have been no
exaggeration had he said that shipping gasoline to Trinidad was a far more
wasteful and senseless effort than carrying coals to Newcastle, which in fact
had sometimes been a profitable venture. But the restrictive provisions of the
"Buy American" Act of 3 March 1933 had been interpreted by the War Department as
applying to products used in the leased bases. Although the Secretary of War
could authorize the purchase, without regard to country of origin, of goods not
produced in the United States of satisfactory quality or in sufficient and
reasonably available quantities, nevertheless not many products had been
certified as coming in this category.46 When the problem of supplying air bases
in the Philippines, in Hawaii, in Alaska, in the West Indies, and in the North
Atlantic began to assume tremendous proportions in the summer of 1941, both War
Plans Division and the Air Corps. raised the question of lifting the provisions
of the law as far as the overseas bases were concerned. This step was not taken
until after the United States entered the war; but for the meantime a long

[401]

list of commodities, including aviation gasoline and
petroleum products in general, was exempted by authority of the Secretary of War
on 30 July 1941.47

In October, General Andrews, the new commanding general of
the Caribbean Defense Command, recommended a change in supply procedure.
Consideration of the question whether the commanding officers of the various
base commands should deal with the Second Corps Area directly or through the
headquarters of the Caribbean Defense Command had resulted in GHQ's suggesting
that the Caribbean Defense Command take over the responsibilities originally
entrusted to the Second Corps Area and build up a supply depot at Panama for the
entire area. Just as unwilling as his predecessor had been to make Panama the
hub of a Caribbean theater, General Andrews disagreed with GHQ's suggestion and
recommended instead that depots be established in Puerto Rico and Trinidad for
supplying all bases in the respective sectors.48
His proposal circulated within the War Department for six weeks, receiving the
concurrence of the interested staff divisions and also of GHQ and finally the
official approval of the Chief of Staff. On 23 December 1941, GHQ was informed
that the Second Corps Area would be relieved of the administration and supply of
the Jamaica, Antigua, St. Lucia, Trinidad, and British Guiana Base Commands at a
time to be designated later. St. Lucia and British Guiana were to be placed
under the Trinidad Base Command, as Andrews had suggested; Antigua and Jamaica
were to come under the Puerto Rican Department for supply. Six months later, in
June 1942, the commanding general of the Caribbean Defense Command was
authorized to establish general depots in Trinidad and Puerto Rico within the
limits of existing or already authorized facilities.49

One of the burdens that fell hard on the staff officers of
the base commands, and chiefly on the chaplains and medical officers, was the
censoring of mail. By midsummer 1941, some 39,000 letters and nearly ,1,000
packages were passing through the post office of the Bermuda Base Command each
month. In Trinidad the volume was only slightly less. The mail of the
construction people as well as that of the military was examined by the

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base censors in Bermuda; but in Trinidad the civilian mail
was censored by employees of the contractors under the immediate supervision of
the district engineer. In the one case, mails were delayed as much as five days;
and in the other, there were complaints among the contractors' people against
the integrity of their fellow employees in the censorship office.50During the
fall of 1941 the base censors were authorized to employ civilian examiners. The
Bermuda censorship office came to be staffed principally by the wives of
men stationed there, which posed a special problem after the attack on Pearl
Harbor when the evacuation of dependents was undertaken.51Censorship caught the
usual careless disclosure of restricted information and, perhaps more important,
gave the commanding officer a steadier finger on the pulse of his men. On the
other side of the picture, the historical officer of the Trinidad Sector has
criticized censorship operations in his sector on grounds that they were
inflexible and overly meticulous and gave rise to "considerable resentment"
among the troops.52 But such is the lot of a censor.

No troops had ever had more thought devoted to their physical
welfare than the American Army of 1940-41.53 So much importance was attached
to it that comfortable housing, a plentiful supply of good food and equipment,
recreation facilities, and the like, took on an intrinsic worth, in pursuit of
which other factors were sometimes lost to sight. The Army made every effort to
ease the physical hardships of service in the jungles of Trinidad and British
Guiana or on the fog-swept coasts of Newfoundland; but its failure to provide
for the emotional needs of men surrounded by a wholly strange environment was as
dismal as the situations that often resulted. Too little cognizance was taken of
the incapacity of Americans generally to adapt their ways to those of strangers
or to take comfort and serious interest in unfamiliar surroundings. Too little
attention was given to preparing the men for the antipathy of a local populace,
however friendly, toward any foreign garrison, however well-intentioned. By any
test of physical comfort, Bermuda should have had no "morale" problems, but as
time went on complaints were made and incidents took place that paralleled those
elsewhere. Wherever the men sought recreation among the townspeople, as they
were accustomed to doing in the United States, brawls and similar unpleasantness

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were bound to occur. Off-post recreation facilities operated
by local committees varied in the service they performed. In Jamaica, the local
effort was received enthusiastically; in Bermuda, the local service club was
charged with price-gouging and discrimination.

During the fall of 1941 the United Service Organizations (USO)
extended its operations to the Atlantic bases.54 The USO recreation centers
helped to allay the tediousness and boredom of the men's leisure time but had
less effect on the attitude of townsfolk and garrison toward each other. For its
solution, this, like most of the problems, required the closest co-operation
between the commanding officers and the local authorities.

The conduct of official relations rested on the base agreement
of 27 March 1941; but, not being a treaty, the base agreement was inferior to
local legislation, and any laws that failed to conform to the agreement stood
until repealed by act of the colonial authorities. The objections raised by
representatives of the colonies during the negotiations foreshadowed, and the
lack of enthusiasm with which the colonies received the agreement further indicated,
that any conflict of law would not easily be corrected. Instead of enacting
a general nullifying ordinance, the colonies preferred to deal with specific
conflicts as they arose. The remission of customs duties and local taxes under
Articles XIV and XVII of the base agreement was not enacted by the Bermuda legislature
until 27 June, exactly three months after the agreement came into effect. Even
then there was only a partial conformity. Bermuda continued to levy duties on
bulk petroleum products not consigned direct to the Army and Navy and on household
effects and personal belongings. Various wharfage charges were assessed on goods
destined for the bases, and a stamp tax was levied on bank checks and steamship
tickets. At the end of 1941 the State Department was still pressing for determination
of a few of the matters.55 In Trinidad a similar stamp tax was one of a number of controversial
questions still outstanding at the end of September. Among these, the failure
of the Trinidad Government to grant the right of audience in local courts to
United States counsel took on urgent importance when an American soldier was
charged with the murder of a

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Trinidad civilian.56 But, as it turned out, the question of
audience was submerged in that of jurisdiction.

This affair concerned a shooting that had taken place in the
town of Arima, outside the leased area in Trinidad, and involved a
jurisdictional issue that was not specifically covered by the base agreement. In
a similar case that had arisen in Antigua a few weeks earlier, both the United
States and the British Government recognized the right of the other to try the
alleged offender, a U.S. marine. If the precedent established in that instance
were to be followed, the representative of the State Department would ask the
local authorities whether they objected to a trial by court-martial and would
inform them at the same time that the United States had no objection to their
making a public statement to the effect that in recognizing American
jurisdiction they were not renouncing the concurrent jurisdiction of the local
court.57But the precedent was not closely followed. The Secretary of the colony,
acting as Governor of Trinidad in the temporary absence of Sir Hubert Young, was
reluctant to raise the question of jurisdiction, although he was pressed by the
Legislative Council to do so. When he asked General Talbot for a letter that
would quiet any public agitation, the general responded readily enough, but he
too preferred to let the issue lie. Instead of acknowledging the fact of dual
jurisdiction, General Talbot replied with assurances that the prisoner would be
given a public trial, by a military court, to which representatives of the
colonial government would be invited.58Whether this would have had the effect
the acting governor hoped was never put to test, for the letter had not been
made public when Governor Young returned and immediately brought the
jurisdictional issue before the American consul. The Governor suggested that he
make a statement with the approval of the United States Government similar to
the one issued by the Antigua authorities. The consul, having received no
instructions, referred the matter to the State Department. Meanwhile, the
preliminaries to the trial had already begun. Three or four days before the
military court convened the Governor agreed that it was now too late to do
anything except issue a formal press release waiving jurisdiction, which he
would do provided the consul repeated General Talbot's announcement of the
court-mar-

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tial, and this was done. Then, on 19 November, the War
Department instructed Talbot to postpone the trial until the Governor issued a
public statement such as he wished, to the effect that recognition of
court-martial jurisdiction was not a renunciation of the concurrent jurisdiction
of the local court. But the trial had started the day before.59

The result of the proceedings, which ended in the acquittal
of the accused soldier, did nothing to appease the Governor's dissatisfaction.
He urged, as he had in the beginning, that in future cases involving dual
jurisdiction the Trinidad Government be informed in good time of the steps
taken, that this be done through the American consulate, and that a definite
procedure be settled upon by which requests for any waiver of jurisdiction could
be given due consideration.60

A successful modus vivendi between the American
authorities and the local government required a measure of co-operation and
mutual understanding seldom achieved in Trinidad until after the United States
entered the war. There was scarcely the best of teamwork between the American
consulate and the headquarters of the base command. In transmitting to the War
Department one of the consular dispatches relating to the shooting affair at
Arima, the Secretary of State invited attention to the arrangement between the
two departments under which "it was agreed that the American consul at Trinidad
should be the intermediary in matters relating to the defense bases and that all
communications to the Governor should be sent through him.61This had
been agreed upon early in June, and on at least five occasions thereafter
General Talbot had been directed to comply with it.62
There was even less teamwork between the general and the Governor. Both were of
the same cut of cloth, blunt and outspoken in their opinions; each was insistent
that the prestige of his own government could best be upheld by not yielding to
the other; neither believed in appeasement. When the Governor refused the right
of audience to American military counsel, the general retaliated by refusing to
permit the service of summonses on American military personnel.63

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At the other bases temporary agreements were worked out with
the local authorities in a spirit of compromise. There was close co-operation
between the American consulate general and Army headquarters in Bermuda, and the
vigorous efforts of the consul general, ably seconded by Colonel Strong, were
successful in bringing about a satisfactory disposition of the tax and customs
questions. Although the Governor was not to be hurried into removing the
legislative obstacles, a working compromise was agreed upon, the final decision
being left to Washington and London. In Newfoundland, the consul general seems
to have taken very little active part in matters relating to the bases. Until
the arrival of the new consul general in July 1941, and afterwards to a lesser
extent, both the district engineer and the commanding officer of the garrison
dealt directly with the Newfoundland Commissioners on many questions. They took
the same approach that had been followed in Bermuda, but the situation was
clouded at times by the presence of Canadian forces, by the role of the
Permanent Joint Board on Defense, and by changes of command, of consular
officers, and in the Newfoundland Commission of Government.64

In retrospect, the 1941 experience in establishing the
defense outposts in the Atlantic leaves one with the distinct impression that
the greatest flaws were in the sphere of social relations. Plans for the
construction and defense of the bases were drawn up with due attention to needs
and resources and rested on a solid basis of firsthand information competently
assembled. The construction program was fairly prompt in getting under way. If
its progress was not all that the most optimistic hoped, it was perhaps because
the goal had been placed too far off. In the seeming emergency of April 1941
troops reached the bases in rather quick order, and when the real crisis broke
in December the airfields were ready for their part in the Battle of the
Atlantic. These technical problems of engineering and defense were no less
complicated, no more important, than the social problem, which deserved far more
attention than it received. No attempt seems to have been made to prepare the
men in advance for the social and physical environment in which

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they were to live. In the selection of units the only
deference to local sensibilities was the decision not to send Negro troops to
the West Indian bases, a decision that was amended in April 1942 without undue
disturbance. The attitude of white troops toward the colored citizens, an
equally fertile source of trouble, was given little weight in choosing the
original units for the Trinidad garrison. "The character of the men in command
of the bases," Ambassador Winant wrote at the conclusion of the base
negotiations, "is of tremendous importance especially in the beginning. If they
are the right kind and ready to carry out our part of the agreement in a
friendly and understanding spirit they can do much to inaugurate ninety-nine
years of good neighborliness."65 Only professional competence, however, and what
might be called the exigencies of the service guided the selection of commanding
officers. Dexterity in the art of diplomacy, a certain skill in getting along
with people who lived differently, and the ability to follow the established
channels of intercourse between nations were not considered. In the personnel
files of G-1 there were scarcely any measurement data or code numbers for
qualities of this sort. It was a matter of chance and not of choosing when an
officer with these qualities was placed in command.